The western sky flashed throughout the night. Dry lightning flickered up the outlines of pillared thunderheads as if within their dark foundations the first dwarves struck sparks off hot adamantine to mend the world's rends and repair other imperfections left by the gods they had slain. Surefooted across the twisted stone she pushed through the night. She followed the still star until first light. She walked backward then, but never saw anyone behind her. She'd lost them.
As the heralding twilight climbed in the east the wind rose with it. She kept her head down. Her face tingled and blistered and the backs of her hands had begun to flake and peel from some corruption of the land. She'd finished her water sometime the day before. She wondered where she was but the stones held no answers. Of dwarves they remembered nothing and their memories of orcs were older than her.
In the gray predawn a line ran thin above the dark horizon like quicksilver draining from the mold of the sky and settling across the world. As she approached the line grew thicker and its uppermost edge rougher and greener. It was a forest. By midmorning she walked east along its edge and marveled at its height. Deep and damp loam covered the floor between trunks leaving no space for friendly stone. Mist rose from everywhere. She'd never seen a treeline so stark nor heard a canopy so quiet. Even in the breeze it made no sound she could hear until the crack and crash of a falling tree shuddered the ground and rolled across its stolid fellows in a wave that carried on behind her. She hurried ahead.
Over a gentle rise she saw the orcs and dropped to her belly so they couldn't sky her. She slithered up to a seam in the ground no taller than a finger and she uptilted her head until everything east was revealed to her. Off toward the distant sea a ruddy haze was coming up as if raised by an army on the march. Closer a dozen or so orcs chopped away at a fallen tree. Closer still she saw seven orckin of different sizes and shapes and she heard them bellowing away in their foul speech. Then she saw the eighth. The tall orc, holding her da's [alpenstock] in his claw with his head upturned to the forest.
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"There ye are ye fuckin devil."
She pressed her cheek into the ground and carefully unshouldered her bag and laid it beside her. She drew the strap of her [longarm] off of her shoulder and over her head and rolled onto her back. She checked the chamber and loaded it and bit the cartridge and powdered the pan. She checked the wind with a pinch of dirt and took a deep breath and rolled back into her stomach.
The tall orc was saying something to the tusker beside him. Mym readied the hammer and sighted him. Her hand steadied between loved stock and silent stone. Her finger threaded the guard and found the trigger's subtle curve. Warmed by sun. Eager. She drew her last breath and as it peaked she leaned her shoulder into what was coming.
The tall orc flashed his teeth and slashed about with his claws and she adjusted her aim. He shoved against the others and she adjusted again. In two steps a limb blocked her sight and in two more the forest enveloped him completely.
She thumbed the hammer and pulled the trigger and lowered it. With the [longarm] in her hands she elbowed back over the rise and down its far slope. She laid the rifle beside her and looked up at the sky. Big and blue with no mountains in sight. She began to wonder what the hell she was doing there anyway.
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> -1 [Belonging] ...The answer to everythin in life is always other folks. And them folks sayin otherwise just haven't figured it out yet cause they ain't never been well and truly alone... (2/10)
> -1 [Vengefulness] ...something changed with their last generation. Something about being last I think, and seeing the end of all things for their folk. They just didn't bear grudges with the gusto of those who had come before... (9/10)